This invention relates to a device for controlling a forest or field fire. One of the greatest dangers to the maintenance and preservation of forests in North America is the forest fire which when unchecked can ravage huge acrages of field or forest land. The vast areas of open and forested land, unlike the limited and isolated timber stands of Europe, require special techniques in checking the spread of a fire once initiated. A fire that has advanced beyond initial stages cannot be fought from its windward side but rather must be checked and confined at its flanks and halted at its leeward side. The fire is then directed to an area which by the topology of the land enables the fire to be surrounded or causes it to burn out.
Various means are conventionally employed to check the local advance of the fire when an attack is made at the flanks or leeward side. Firebreaks comprising a swath of bulldozed land or land from which the combustibles are removed by other methods are one means. This requires either an ability to locate heavy equipment at the fire site, or the expenditure of extensive labor with portable equipment. Back burning in which a controllable fire is started and directed to meet the advancing fire also destroys combustibles. This suffers from the disadvantages that often much valuable land must be sacrificed to the advancing fire and that the backfire itself may rage out of control.
A means that is not highly labor extensive and that preserves as much land as possible is preferred.